Thursday, April 03, 2008

Farewell Evergreen Airport, Vancouver, WA

Evergreen Airport was built in the 40s and closed down in 2006. For a little airport, it covers a lot of land, giving our eyes a break from the ever-growing shopping sprawl on Mill Plain Boulevard. There are other visual treats on Mill Plain; Mt. Hood on clear days; there's an excellent view of it from the Cost Plus parking lot (and I recently discovered, from the Post Office on 136th Avenue). I enjoy seeing the mobile home parks because they're traditional and I like that look (especially the homes with lots of lawn gnomes and wind chimes--very homey to me). And Knight Camera is an unassuming house-like structure full of cameras, camera parts, lenses, tripods and guys with tool kits, ready to fix anything you bring in, or supply you with affordable parts if it can't be fixed.

But our pleasantly deserted transportation ghost town is now gone, demolished within the past two weeks to make way for a Crate & Barrel, among other things. We are sad to see it go. It's charming to have an airport in your neighborhood without having to deal with the noise or air pollution it normally would have generated. Here's how it used to look before turning to rubble. Thanks to the guys at Knight for fixing my camera so I could take these.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Thanks for the pics of Eveergreen Airfield before it was gone. you can still see it on google maps with planes on the field. I gotta save that image. I got my flying licence in Clark county at age 19. Went to Evergreen a few times. Flew with Wally Olson around 1995. 16 bucks an hour! (it's 100 easy now) I'm glad I have Evergreen in my logbook. Sad it's gone but such it "progress".

Kinda sad to here its gone, I lived in vancouver for several years before moving to eastern washington, we use to ride our bikes through the airport to get to the gravel pit, and our homes on the other side,have not been by the airport in several years, didnt even know it was shut down, there goes another piece of history/attended Evergreen HS on the other side of the AP.

My Grandparents lived right across the street from the field. I would love going across the street and crawl around all the planes. Took my first ride with Wally in the Bi-plane. He had to put some pillows under me so the shoulder harness would fit. I swear we wern't 100 feet off the ground and already upside down. I spent many childhood hours at that airport.